Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Mon., Jan. 11) -- college football national championship dominates prime-time, plunges from last year

01/12/16 09:52 AM

By ED BARK@unclebarkycom on TwitterA much-closer, high octane game no doubt helped the D-FW ratings for Monday’s college football national championship game on ESPN.

Still, it dropped off sharply from last year’s lopsided 42-20 win by Ohio State over Oregon. Mitigating factors: that was the first ever championship game under the new four-team playoff system. And it was played in Jerry’s Palace, which likely helped to pump the D-FW numbers.

Whatever the case, Alabama’s 45-40 win over Clemson at University of Phoenix Stadium fell to an average of 658,663 viewers compared to 850,828 for Ohio State-Oregon. Among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds, Alabama-Clemson had 279,462 viewers compared to last year’s 400,533. This year’s championship game stretched to 11:18 p.m. but peaked early on with a high of 771,982 total viewers from 8:45 to 9 p.m.

ESPN can brag that nothing else came close. CBS’ 7 p.m. rerun of The Big Bang Theory, which aired before the game began, was the runner-up in total viewers with 219,554. ABC’s two-hour dollop of The Bachelor ran second among 18-to-49-year-olds with 76,217.

Here are Monday’s local news derby results.

TEGNA8 edged CBS11 for the most total viewers at 10 p.m. while Fox4 won by a comfortable margin with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). TEGNA8’s mainstay 10 p.m. anchor, John McCaa, returned to duty after a bout with a fractured jaw.

Fox4 again won by wide margins at 6 a.m. and NBC5 had a big day in the early evening by running the table at both 5 and 6 p.m.